"Everything that affects our environment affects our health. As fancy as our technology is, we still cannot live without clean water, air, and food, and we rely on our environment for these." Professor Cindy Parker co-directs the Programe on Global Environmental Sustainability and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Environment, Energy, Sustainability, and Health Institute.

And one sure way to protect the environment that sustain us is moving toward using the power of the Sun through
a) passive, high-thermal-mass solar design and
b) active solar systems: hot water solar panels and PV solar panels.

Passive solar homes need to import about half as much energy as non-passive solar homes. As such, passive solar homes produce only half as much greenhouse emissions. By far, the most beneficial, abundant and friendly sources of energy is the sunlight. There is more energy coming from the Sun in one hour than what the whole world consumes in one year. So, when designing our homes, why not start with what is given to us for free, the sun, the wind, the water, which makes in my view good sense environmentally, economically and aesthetically.

Therefore buildings should be:

EARTH-FRIENDLY – using as much as possible local and renewable materials, with a minimum amount of energy, from extraction, processing, shipping of materials to installation, operation and maintenance of the building.